I thought I was going to be a sportswriter growing up.

I started writing for publication in my junior year at La Jolla High School for the school newspaper named—appropriately enough for a California coastal community—the La Jolla Hi-Tide.

As I recall, I wrote feature stories about the golfers and baseball players, and I was even able to report about my experiences attending a bullfight in Tijuana. (Try doing that in these politically correct times!) Early in my senior year the local newspaper, a weekly known as the La Jolla Light, asked me to cover the exploits of the La Jolla High football and basketball teams. I was paid ten cents for every column inch that made it into the newspaper, which was about $1.40 for each story . . . if some of my prose didn’t end up on the cutting room floor. A buck-sixty-five was minimum wage in those days, so when I added up the hours to watch a game, interview the La Jolla High coaches, and write my story, I was probably making 40 cents an hour. It was worth it because I loved seeing my name in print and hearing people say, “Hey, I read your story.”

I decided to attend the University of Oregon for two reasons: they had one of the best journalism schools on the West Coast, and they had a crummy enough tennis team that I could play on. Even though I played a lot of junior tennis and held a modest ranking in San Diego County, I knew I wasn’t good enough to play for the USC’s and Stanford’s of the world.

College was a blast... within a couple of weeks of arriving in Eugene, Oregon, the University of Oregon student newspaper—a five-day-a-week publication called the Oregon Daily Emerald—assigned me to cover the Duck football team. Talk about nirvana for a freshman!

I loved sitting in the press box, kibbitizing with the pros from the Eugene Register Guard and Oregonian newspapers, and then rushing into the locker rooms after the game to interview the likes of Coach John McKay of USC and players like Dan Fouts, who was in his senior year at Oregon. When the basketball season arrived around Thanksgiving time, I was given that “beat” as well. Heady stuff for a freshman.

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